I just purchased a cloud ftp usb adapter for my ipad so i can access my data.
What these companies dont tell you is that the ipad must sync or download the files from hdd to ipad to access the data, which makes it ridiculous if your trying to watch video or listen to music.

My question is: Does anyone know how to stream the data from an external storage device so that accessing feel natural like a laptop?

edit: Air Video with a mac mini server pretty much did what i was looking for. Hopefully a HDD that offers something similar will be available soon.

It opens files in safari, was hoping I can choose other apps
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t qSep 30 '12 at 4:40

it looks like that's their only supported solution for CloudFTP... you could always use File Sharing on a Mac and use the app FileBrowser for the iPhone. specifically, what apps are you trying to use your external storage data with?
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Ethan LeeSep 30 '12 at 4:45

Why not just use Dropbox for this? You can copy your audio and video to your Dropbox folder, install the Dropbox client on your computers and mobile devices, and let it keep your files in sync across all of your machines.